Great posts, white and rightchea. The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of Burke as DC.

First, we have a very young coach with very limited head coaching experience. This season, we paired him with a rookie defensive coordinator - and the result was the worst defense, statistically, in the 50-year history of the franchise. To me, if we're going to have an offensive-minded head coach that also calls offensive plays and is still figuring out how to be a head coach, it would make much more sense to have an experienced defensive coordinator that can run the defense without having to learn on the job. I said the same thing when Joseph was initially hired, and I saw nothing to make me think differently.

Second, Matt Burke coached the worst unit (linebackers) on the entire team - and probably the worst LB unit in the entire NFL. Sure, he wasn't given much to work with, but look at the results. Which linebacker improved over the course of the season?? I can't name one...and I'd even argue that Alonso, in particular, got worse as the season went on. And I didn't see much if any improvement in the younger 'backers like Hull and Hewitt. Why give control of the entire defense to a guy that epically failed coaching just one position??

I don't know...the defense absolutely sucked this season (especially against quality opponents), and promoting Burke seems like putting a tiny band-aid on a massive shotgun wound.

anybody hoping for Wade Phillips or any other 3-4 coach can forget it...

Gase sounded very much inclined on Wednesday to keep a 4-3 defense.

“I'm not really going to look into putting our players in a situation where every spring, we're looking to change a whole bunch of things,” he said. “We'll always look to improve as far as what we're doing.” We'll always go back, evaluate and figure out what's best for that next season. But one of the things we had discussed when I first got this job was, 'let's make sure that this is our defense,' as far as the Miami Dolphins."

mercury22nathan wrote:anybody hoping for Wade Phillips or any other 3-4 coach can forget it...

Gase sounded very much inclined on Wednesday to keep a 4-3 defense.

“I'm not really going to look into putting our players in a situation where every spring, we're looking to change a whole bunch of things,” he said. “We'll always look to improve as far as what we're doing.” We'll always go back, evaluate and figure out what's best for that next season. But one of the things we had discussed when I first got this job was, 'let's make sure that this is our defense,' as far as the Miami Dolphins."

Yeah, he's making the continuity argument. It's clear the power trifecta feels they just didn't have the talent to compete on that side of the ball, especially after we lost all those starters. Hell our defensive line wasn't good either outside Suh and Wake - even with no one getting hurt.

I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's roll with Burke then, and expect that with better players we will raise the level of play on defense next year.

white1 wrote:Yeah, he's making the continuity argument. It's clear the power trifecta feels they just didn't have the talent to compete on that side of the ball, especially after we lost all those starters. Hell our defensive line wasn't good either outside Suh and Wake - even with no one getting hurt.

I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's roll with Burke then, and expect that with better players we will raise the level of play on defense next year.

If it doesn't happen, we can all hang Gase for making this decision.

I HATE the continuity argument. Continuity is ONLY good if what you have is working. If it's not working, then continuing to do the same thing only leads to more failure.

Better players isn't necessarily the answer...as you said, we have Wake and Suh on the DL and it still sucks. And it's not like getting better players is easy...if it was, why did the Dolphins put such a crappy product on the defensive side this season? They signed Mario Williams, Andre Branch, Baccari Rambo and Donald Butler, and traded for Kiko Alonso and Byron Maxwell. They also signed IAQ, who was nothing special even before his injury. Clearly, none of those acquisitions raised the level of play of the defense. So how can we just assume that 2017 acquisitions will make a difference? If the scheme sucks, it doesn't really matter which players you add. Good schemes can hide lesser players....obviously, this scheme can't.

Some of you are talking like Joseph MISSED tackles or took horrendous angles!!

What I look at from the DC (and the OC) most of the time, is does the scheme he employs make sense, and will it work if EXECUTED PROPERLY.

Given that EVEN WITH THE STARTING TALENT on the Defense for the Phins, the Phins are in the lower half of the league IMO (heck, they may even be bottom four or five I am thinking!!!), going 10-6 would be a major accomplishment.

With the loss of all those starters and shifting and tweaking, it looked to me in the limited games I saw, that the problem was poor tackling, bad angles by the LBs and safeties, and generally pissoir poor LB play; not Joseph's schemes.

Really, when you look at the LACK OF TALENT on defense for the Phins, I am surprised they managed to win 10 games.

finfanatic wrote:Some of you are talking like Joseph MISSED tackles or took horrendous angles!!

What I look at from the DC (and the OC) most of the time, is does the scheme he employs make sense, and will it work if EXECUTED PROPERLY.

Given that EVEN WITH THE STARTING TALENT on the Defense for the Phins, the Phins are in the lower half of the league IMO (heck, they may even be bottom four or five I am thinking!!!), going 10-6 would be a major accomplishment.

With the loss of all those starters and shifting and tweaking, it looked to me in the limited games I saw, that the problem was poor tackling, bad angles by the LBs and safeties, and generally pissoir poor LB play; not Joseph's schemes.

Really, when you look at the LACK OF TALENT on defense for the Phins, I am surprised they managed to win 10 games.

Not Joseph's schemes? Playing CBs 10 yards off the line of scrimmage, running the stupid wide-9 that made it easy for teams to run on us, not protecting the middle of the field, not disguising blitzes...I could go on, but those are some of the glaring issues I saw this season, and none of that is related to players - it's scheme. And the bottom line - if players are constantly out of position and taking poor angles (cough - Kiko Alonso - cough), isn't it the repsonsibility of teh coaching staff to teach them what to do?

Sure, there's a lack of talent in the back 7. But that doesn't change the fact that the talented DL sucked, or that no in-game adjustments were made. And, the defense sucked even when everyone was healthy - remember the first Patriots game?

BTW - I won't deny that Gase and his staff did good things this season. They did. But the team was completely outmatched in all phases every time we played a good team. Let's not be fooled into thinking we had a great season simply because we beat bad teams and got a playoff berth. This team has a LONG way to go to be able to compete with the big dogs - and we're going to need better coaching in addition to better players to get there.

I have to agree. The staff did something that we haven't seen in a long time and for the fact that they made it to the playoff with what they had is great but at the same time Miami needed a DC that knows how to establish a defense that can beat great teams or at least make those adjustments. Burke might have worked under Joseph but he will probably make the same or worst adjustments then he did.

Sounds like Burke is going to run the exact defense that Jim Schwartz ran in Detroit. For the 5 years Schwartz coached Detroit, they were ranked near the bottom of the league in defense almost every season, in both yards and points allowed. On the plus side, Schwartz's Bills' defense was excellent in 2014. So, I guess we'll see how it turns out...